Birthright
by Irene Raveltale
Summary: Christopher Matthew Smith is an ordinary teenager with ordinary parents. Or so he has been told. When a madman with a bowtie turns up in the middle of his life, the universe goes topsy-turvy and wibbly-wobbly. And guess who has to save it? And what does his parents, Rose and John Smith have to do with it? set in Pete's World with Rose, 10.5, AU 11, and an OC.
1. Prologue

**Hello again! Yes, I know I shouldn't be writing anything new. Yes, I know I should finish my old stuff, but...it's the way I am...also what happens when you set out to write long stuff with no idea how it's gonna end XP  
I have no idea how THIS will end either. So GERONIMO!  
P.s. I came up with the kid's name on the spot, if it sounds like crap and you have a better name, go for it. I'll change it no problemo. Also, if you come across this and have read my stuff before, once you have gotten over the astonishment that I am indeed, still alive, just know that I probably won't be updating much of my old stuff unless specifically requested. And even then, I may need a little help with plot direction...  
Enjoy  
-Irene Raveltale.**

At first glace, the Smith/Tyler family seemed quite ordinary.

At second glance, the Smith/Tyler family seemed quite ordinary.

If you stared at them a good, long while, and devoted yourself to a lifetime of study, you would still find them fairly unremarkable.

If you were a millennium-old extra-terrestrial with a phone box that could travel through time and it's relative dimensions in space, you would find them very, very suspicious.

On this particular Tuesday, the Smith/Tyler family was doing yet another suspiciously ordinary thing.

They had bought a new refrigerator.

And it had stumped that millennium-old extra-terrestrial. Or at least, one of him.

"I have a hard time believing you just PLUG IT IN." he said with concern.

"You just plug it in." reassured his wife, the human, Rose.

"But it looks so big and complicated! There's GOT to be something else I have to do?"

A pair of large eyes and a small voice came from around the corner. "Mum?"

"They designed it so it wouldn't be rocket science."

"Rocket science is no trouble, it's quantum theory I'm worried about."

"Mum?"

Rose laughed, "It's just an icebox, John!"

The man supposedly named John sighed. "I suppose you're right." He said, setting down a screwdriver with a fair amount of disappointment.

"Mum?"

Rose turned, "what?"

"Can I have the box?" asked the small voice.

"Of course Chris."

The boy grinned. He whipped around and called to someone behind him "It's okay Mels!" he and reddish haired girl a couple of years younger ran forwards and snatched the enormous box in which the refrigerator had come. And then, seeing an opportunity, the boy snatched his father's screwdriver for good measure.

The door slammed loudly, announcing Chris and Mels' exit. John stared forwards, his mind somewhere entirely different.

"You alright?" asked Rose.

"Wha-? Oh, yes. It's just…I worry about them. We try everything to make sure he never knows who and what he is. Who and what WE are. And yet, he does these little things, these little, obvious things."

Rose smiled, "He's just being a kid."

"Yes, but still."

"If you give a kid a giant box, any kid, who wouldn't expect them not to make a spaceship out of it?"

"STILL. I worry. If he even gets the slightest inkling of what he is, it could put him in such terrible danger."

"We can handle danger."

"Rose. I'm human now."

"Still doesn't mean you're not my Doctor. Besides, I think you're looking too deep into something perfectly normal."

"I hope you're right."

[[POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX]]

The box had been set up in the front yard. Chris made another dash towards the house.

"What are you doing?" asked his friend, Mels.

"Getting my clock!"

"Why do you need a clock?"

"So it can work as a time machine!"

"I thought this was going to be a spaceship?"

"It is!"

"But you just said it was going to be a time machine!"

"It is!"

"I don't get it."

"What? It can't be both?"

"Well, it's just…"

"Hang on." Chris ran inside the house, dashed up the stairs, grabbed the alarm clock off his bedside table and slammed the door on his way outside.

"Right." He said. "Now to get this all together."

Along with the clock and the screwdriver, the two of them has also gathered a pair of scissors, tape, and a wide variety of markers.

"Right. Lets start with doors."

"Why do we need doors?"

"So we can get in and out!"

"What about the bottom?"

"What? And upend the whole thing every time we want in or out? Very impractical. No, I want doors." He wielded the scissors. "You can start coloring it."

"What color?" asked Mels, pouring over the markers. "Red, green, orange, blue?"

"I like blue." Chris responded idly.


	2. Identity Crisis

**Hello again! I don't know if this activates the 'story alert' subscription e-mail, and if it does i sincirely apologize for the lack of new chapter (soon, don't worry). I just realized that I was so excited to upload a new chapter that I had forgotten to spell/grammer check it. though, with my amzinly corect skillz, i didnt neeed it so bad.  
Still, the correct version is now uploaded, and, if you may, you might want to re-read it, and appreciate the HD quality ;)****  
I 3 3 you, and your amazing reviews! Shout out to Citizenofwhoville123, Voldemort's Spawn, WhoviansTARDIS, and Quackaby. Go read anything they've posted and tell them what amazing people they are.  
See? leave a review and get free advertising for your stories. Not a shabby deal, eh? The review-monster needs feeding. Come on...  
-"Irene"  
**  
10 YEARS LATER

Twas yet another rather ordinary day, verging on dull.

The Internet connection was terrible as usual as Christopher Matthew Smith hopped about on his laptop.

Of course, by now the technology had advanced so that no one really needed the physical presence of a laptop, and just get an implant. But there were much tighter laws about that sort of thing, and even now, after all these years, people would still speak of the "Cybus Incident" with a note of fear.

The Incident itself had been roughly twenty-some years ago, back before Chris had been born. Actually, back before his parents had even been married. He didn't quite know when he had first heard about it, just as most people never really remember the first time they've heard about the Big Bad Wolf. The tale in itself could have been fantasy. And yet, there was recorded footage of it, metal men stomping around, either "upgrading" or "deleting" everyone. And then they all just vanished without a trace.

After that, the people wanted the technology to be as safe and separated from them as possible. They wouldn't even let the revolutionary, new, environmentally safe Atmos engine off the drawing board.

So, in the end, Chris had a laptop rather than an implant. And, being of a slightly squeamish nature, he was quite fine with that. The laptop was impossibly thin, so shiny that it hurt, and today, annoyingly slow.

He was, in fact, so annoyed at it that he didn't even notice the ancient and dangerous thing attempting to break in the door.

[[POLICE POBLIC CALL BOX]]

The alien had a mission. Someone to find. And its life depended on it.

He blended in nicely with the crowd. That is, when he wasn't madly sniffing the air, which he did now. He caught the scent of who he was trying to catch, and made quick strides to follow it.

He was a shape-shifter. Not exactly at will, and not much beyond a humanoid but a shape-shifter nonetheless. And luckily for him, nearly indiscernible from a human.

The person he was hunting had been injured, they couldn't run too far, even if they WERE quite the runner. Though he himself was quite drained as well, making them rather an even match.

There wasn't much time…

He chased the smell down a twisting maze of roads. He was, for a moment, confused, as it seemed to go several different places at once. He shook his head, and made his way towards the closest.

He came to a stop in front of a door, and nearly yelped when he caught the reflection of himself in it's windows. So this was what he looked like now?

He adjusted the bowtie, admiring himself, then immediately told he to snap out of it and open the door.

He fished in his pocket for the device, pulled it out, and tried to unlock the door.

Something was quite wrong. It wasn't making to right _whirrrrrr_ sound. He checked again, and realized someone had made a point to deadlock the door.

No matter.

Setting the screwdriver to its longest-range setting, he pointed it to where he best assumed the hinges were.

A satisfying pinging sound came from the other side of the door as all the screws fell out. He gave the door a gentle nudge.

_WHAM!_

[[POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX]]

Of course, Chris hadn't noticed the ATTEMPTS to break down the door, but he certainly heard the crash as the actual breaking-down occurred.

He closed the lid of his laptop as quickly as he could without snapping it in half, ran out of the room and cautiously made his way towards the sound.

He stood and stared as the door lay on the floor, and slowly backed away as a man who seemed to be under the delusion that bow ties were cool tensely stepped inside.

He sniffed the air.

Chris took another step back.

The man's eyes locked onto the teen for a moment, and he turned away and started upsetting the furniture.

Seeing how the man had ignored him, Chris stepped forwards. "Who are you?"

"Doctor…" the man muttered, turning over chairs, tables, and sniffing madly.

"What are you doing here?"

"Where are you?"

Chris carefully tried to make his way towards the phone, intent on calling the police. The man was obviously insane.

The operative word in the previous paragraph, however, was 'tried'. As before Chris could get to the phone, it had been flung across the room and smashed in the man's wild search.

Carefully gauging whether he would make it or not, Chris made a dash for the door. There were always phone booths and they couldn't all be smashed.

He made it out, and began running in the direction of what he knew was the closest one when something telephone booth-shaped caught the corner of his eye.

He whipped around, and saw that it was very telephone booth-shaped. The wrong color, of course, but obviously some kind of phone booth.

He skidded up to it and examined it more closely. 'POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX' it read on top. Well, that was just about what he needed. Police and a phone box. Though it was odd, he had never seen one of these anywhere before. Perhaps it was some new design.

He pulled open the panel, revealing a device that might have resembled a phone, a long, long time ago. He frantically tried to make a call, but, if it worked, he couldn't figure it out.

With a rising feeling of panic, he shoved the door open, and all else was wiped from his mind.

He shut the door.

He opened it again.

He stepped inside and stepped back out.

He threw a rock inside.

He backed away, circled the box, touching all the sides to make sure they were solid.

He stood in front of the door, staring.

He pushed it open again, dimly aware that the sign said 'pull', and walked inside. His head whipping around trying to take in as much detail as possible.

He backed out once more and carefully shut the door. He stood there. Staring in shock.

"Excuse me." Someone brushed past him and shot inside. He realized that it was the same man who had torn up his house.

He carefully watched the doors as he made a few short hops, skips, then running strides back towards his house.

Madmen in bow ties. Doors that pushed open when the sign said pull. Boxes that were bigger on the…

Chris stopped in his tracks, and added, 'people that can move from one place to another REALLY quickly' to his list of strange things today.

In a logical universe, when the bow-tie-guy had run past him, it meant that, logically, he had left the house. And, if Chris did not remember seeing him along the shortest way home, then logically, it meant he was STILL not at the house.

The universe clearly wasn't a logical one.

The man was more distressed than ever, spinning around, sniffing, and very confused.

Chris darted back out the door again, unconsciously heading back the paradox police box.

"Hello again!" called a cheerful voice as the impossible man ran past him in the opposite direction. Chris spun around.

It was clearly the same person, exact in every way. Except, perhaps, for the limp.

In a stroke of insanity, he followed him.

But that of course, wasn't the real insanity.

What Chris saw before him was too impossible, too crazy, and so beyond words that he didn't even add it to his list.

How could the same person be in two places at once?

And then the human instinct of compacting facts into a nice, logical, dimensionally normal box kicked in. and he began trying to convince himself that the men were twins.

But how did that explain that…that…?

The limping man rounded on the other, lifting a long, thin metal device.

"No… NO!" shouted the other.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Said the first.

"Then what is THAT?" the second indicated the device.

"You know that's just a screwdriver. You probably got one when you took my form."

The second gave a sharp gasp as he doubled over, clutching his chest. "You know I haven't taken your form. Not properly, anyway. Otherwise I would be stable…"

"For how long? Your cellular structure changes every time you feed. SOMEONE was bound to get away and upset the process." He gently shifted his lame leg.

"My mistake."

"You have three options. One, leave the Earth alone and I let you go. Two, I bring the Shadow Proclamation into this and let them deal with you. Three, I deal with you myself."

The second man stood there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly debating.

Then he launched himself at the first.

The other man tried to jump out of the way, readying the screwdriver, but he was a second too slow. In midair, the second man had changed from a human into…something… whatever it was now was gooey, oozy, and rather hard to describe beyond that.

The two toppled to the floor. The man gave a gasp of pain as the…thing slimed over him. And a foul burning smell filled the room.

The man frantically dug in his pocket, and pulled out some sort of circular device that the ooze promptly smacked away.

This whole time, Chris had stayed back by the door, ready to run away at any moment. But when things started getting weird, (well, weird-er) he had frozen, watching like it was some kind of TV show.

The device skidded a short distance away from him.

"GET IT!" cried the man, desperately trying to crawl away from (out of?) the thing attacking him, but failing completely.

Chris looked at the object and back.

The man gave a sudden gasp of pain. Chris then realized, with a twisting sensation, that he was being dissolved. That he was dying.

He jumped for the device, he hadn't a clue what it did, or how it worked, but he knew that if he could turn it on, then…well, he'd go from there.

He turned it over and over and over again, blocking from his mind the heavy breathing that slowly grew weaker and raspier.

He pushed on it, he pulled it, he twisted it, he flipped it around again. Nothing.

He threw it on the floor.

It beeped.

With a squishing, a sucking, a bang and a whole lot of light, the creature was gone.

Chris walked over to the man. Uncomfortably, as though his very proximity might hurt him.

"What's your name?" asked the stranger.

"Christopher Smith."

The man nodded. "Good, excellent name, Smith, Good name, I like Smith, lots of friends named that, it's one I've used before, lots of times."

"What?" Chris attempted to sort out the babbling.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way." Said the man brightly, before he fell unconscious.


	3. Who? What?

**I would say 'hello again!' if I hadn't realized I had said that in my last two A/Ns. So I'll say howdy to shake things up a bit.  
HOWDY!  
Remind me never to say that ever again.  
Anyway, new chapter, as promised. Getting all the obligatory 'meeting the Doctor' formalities out of the way (i.e "It's bigger on the inside!" "is it always this dangerous?" and "doctor WHO?"), let me know if I/The Doctor forgot anything in the explanations. Hope I got his personality right, he's rather distinctive, which helps. And if it's not right, well, he IS from an alternate universe than the 11 we know.  
More A/N at the bottom, so I won't get in the way of the story ;)**_  
_**-"Irene"**

_Well… this is awkward… _though Chris, as he looked around the wrecked room and down at the strange Doctor. What exactly did one do in this sort of scenario? He couldn't just SIT THERE, but what else could he do?

He attempted to move a table to its original position, carefully setting a lamp on top of it as he straightened its shade.

The table broke.

He decided that just sitting there was probably the best way to go.

Well, not exactly SIT, per say, as he didn't trust the furniture to stay stable, nor did he want to sit on the floor after the goo-man disaster, he stood and leaned against the wall.

After about thirty seconds of 'just standing there', he found his fingers itching towards his pocket. Typical. Though he wasn't sure if it was exactly appropriate to play playing computer games in this…situation. It was just weird, insensitive.

Insensitive won out. His hand dived for his pocket, but he then remembered he had left his laptop in his room. Which wasn't entirely a terrible thing, as going to get it gave him something purposeful to do. He hopped into his room, tucked it under his arm, and then went back out into the disaster area and his patch of the wall.

He opened the lid of the computer and straightened it out to form a massive tablet, and began playing the current 'quirky-yet-oddly-popular-app' game _Laser Snowmen, _occasionally peeking over the top of the device to see if the Doctor had moved.

The Doctor, however, was dead to the world. It looked as if he might sleep through the apocalypse, so still and relaxed.

His eyes snapped wide open.

He looked around for a moment, then sat immediately upright. He sprung to his feet, took a few steps, and was then reunited with the floor with a rather loud _THUNK._

Chris jumped, and quickly folded his computer into a shape roughly the size of a deck of cards and then stuffed it in his pocket, a look of _'computer? What computer?' _printed clearly on his face.

The Doctor gently stood up again, this time pressing against the wall for support. He turned to Chris and smiled, "Excellent timing. Another few seconds and this story might have ended entirely differently. Thank you."

"What the heck just happened?" blurted Chris.

"Oh, nothing terribly out of the ordinary. Was going about my own business until squishy here jumped me. Luckily he was anticipating a human target, I just managed to pull away, got my leg caught, though. We both spent about twenty minutes trying to track the other one down while still keeping a safe distance, I trace it here, you save the day. Typical day, for me."

"But what was that th- wait, did you say it was as anticipating a HUMAN target? But that suggests that you-"

"It was a predator from Thaxilon 6, it dissolves its victims and then turns into a perfect copy of them, they even get their memories. If the process is interrupted the attacker dies within hours. Not sure how he got here though." he scooped up the device that had made the creature disappear, and turned it over in his hands. "Judging by its strength, probably was stranded several years ago. Probably didn't have any intention of leaving, either, humans here being such easy prey. The other intelligent species of Thaxilon 6 have evolved to be obsessive-compulsive and thoroughly paranoid, not that humans aren't capable of that."

Chris tried to find some rational connection somewhere, "are you from Torchwood?" he asked, very proud for having made an intelligent comment.

"Goodness no! Though I did create Torchwood. Accidentally. Long story…" he scratched the back of his neck. "Say, how would you like to come with me?" said the Doctor suddenly.

"Where?"

"Back to my TARDIS. I think you saw it earlier, big blue box."

"Yeah. Yeah I did." how could he possibly forget it?

The Doctor stumbled briskly out the door, wobbling so badly Chris feared he might do another face-plant.

"Are you alright?" he asked, concernedly following him.

"Fit as a fiddle!" chirped the Doctor. How could a man sound so perky after almost getting killed?

"Physician heal thyself…" muttered Chris as he followed carefully behind, ready to catch him if he keeled over.

They stopped in front of the police box as the Doctor took a key and unlocked it. He grinned at Chris. "Here comes the best part." He said, and pushed the door open, revealing the impossible inside of the box. TARDIS, Chris corrected himself.

The Doctor bounced inside, and Chris followed in his wake. The eccentric possibly-alien spread his arms proudly. "What do you think?" he asked.

"It's…nice."  
"Nice? It's bloody brilliant! Sexy too. Anything else?" he tipped his head expectantly.

"Well, it's…big."

"Compared to?"

"Lots of stuff."

"Come on, what's the first thing you noticed when we walked in here?"

"It's yellowish?"

"You're supposed to say it's bigger on the inside! Everyone says that! I love it when they say that!"

"Well, I suppose that's what hit me when I saw it the first time…"

"The first time?" the Doctor seemed to visibly deflate. "You mean you've seen it before?"

"Yeah, a few minutes ago."

"I see." His peppy mood mildly flattened, the Doctor stepped out of the main room and began digging through a cupboard, causing a minor avalanche.

"So, who are you?" Chris shouted so the doctor could hear him in the other room.

"The Doctor, I thought I told you?" called a reply.

"yeah, but…doctor who?"

"WHAT?" shouted the Doctor, as he moved farther out of earshot.

"WHO!"

"WHO?"

"WHAT?" yelled Chris, having been momentarily distracted by a typewriter on the high-tech looking control console.

"WHO!"

"YES!"

"WHO WHAT?"

"DOCTOR WHO?"

"YES!"

"YOU'RE DOCTOR WHO?"

"NO, JUST THE DOCTOR!"

"YES, BUT DOCTOR WH-"

"JUST HANG ON!" some rather loud crashes came from the other room, and the Doctor stepped back in holding a vial of grayish liquid. "I'm the Doctor. Just the Doctor. It's my name."

"Right…" said Chris. "The Doctor."

"Exactly." He uncorked the vial.

"What is that?"

"Healing liquid from Cafrictious two. Best stuff in the galaxy." He tipped the vial down his throat, and Chris had only a moment to register and respond to the expression on the Doctors face before the medicine came back out in a wide spray. "Rubbish stuff. Absolute rubbish. Doesn't work at all." Said the Doctor, tossing the vial behind him, where it proceeded to smash on the floor with a gentle tinkling sound. He reached in a pocket and procured another device, (how did all this technology fit in a single pocket?) clicked it on, and began running it over his injuries.  
"So what is this place?" asked Chris.

"The control room of the TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S, stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, which is what it travels through."

"So it's a time machine?"

"And a spaceship."

"Are you human?"

"No."

"You look human."

The Doctor stared blankly at Chris. "I need a new response for this, but you look Time Lord." He stared a little closer at the teen. "Very Time Lord."

"What's that?"

"My species."

"Hence the time machine?"

"Hence the time machine."

The sat silent for a moment, listening to the soft hum of the Doctor's device. "So, will you?" he asked suddenly.

"Will I what?"

The Doctor blinked as though that were obvious. "Come with me."

Chris was taken aback by the suddenness of it. "Through space?"

"And time."

He looked around. "What, NOW?"

"No time like the present, as you humans say. Though I am rather partial to the past as well. Future's not too bad either. Yes, NOW, what is there to wait for?"

"Well, the house is a disaster and pretty soon my parents-… God I'm thick. We can come back the moment we left?"

"We can come back BEFORE we left. Though that isn't often advisable."

"Is it typically this dangerous?"

"Yep. Though usually there's more running around and me being clever."

Chris thought about it. They had just met, this was completely crazy! And yet… there was something familiar about all this, maddeningly familiar, like a dream you knew you had and remembered having, but couldn't remember what it was about.

And as crazy as it was, as nervous as it made him feel, there was something so oddly, so very oddly…_right_ about it all.

What the heck.

"Okay. Where-" he corrected himself, "when are we going?"

"Oh, I've got a few fun places in mind…" said the Doctor with a sly smile, cracking his fingers and stepping up to the console.

Chris had a feeling that the Doctor's definition of 'fun', was going to be very, very deadly.

**Hi! Anyway, just some random explaining stuff. The planet names are NOT from canon. I made them up (which I must say, is pretty fun), and if they just so happen to be the same name as something from canon, I assure you, it wasnt intened so. (coincidences are what the universe does for fun)  
So, now the formalities are out of the way and my OC is now officially with the Doctor, (speaking of which, is he too terrible? I get nitpicky about other people's OCs, as they tend to be rather lifeless. Mine are just carbon-copies of me. :S) I haven't a clue where they should be going next! I'll take requests, and keep in mind that this Doctor has traveled with niether Rose nor (in my version, anyway) Amy, and consequently, Jack isnt immortal either. I'm saving the big stuff like the Cybermen and the Daleks (THERE WILL BE DALEKS!) for later on, letting the characters have some minor adventures up front. But that doesnt mean we can't have a run-in with a Raxicoricophallapatorian (Spelling? lol) or two. as for characters, 10.5 and Rose will come in eventually, but what fun is there in the big reveal right away? Somebody mentioned that they hoped Melody would play a part, and I'm honestly not sure when she'll pop up again. But there are two things for sure:  
1: the Doctor will find a crazy hat that he decides is cool  
2: well, SOMEBODY'S gotta destroy it! Who better than River's alternate self?**


	4. I heart NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY

**HI! No, I haven't given up on this thing yet. Hence, new chapter (sorry if it feels like a filler). and I've been brainstorming some interesting stuff for later too. Though they're probably going to stick around NNY for the next couple of chapters. Again, thank you to my lovely reviewers, especially Citizenofwhoville123, who is an amazingly awesome person for reviewing all my chapters! (not to mention whose comments make up half all my reviews) now, everybody ELSE on the other hand, i'm not so pleased with. may I guilt you with some data? around 106 people have read this thing, and it only has 6 reviews. you do the math. I really do love feedback.  
sorry, rant over.  
Don't blink.**  
**-"Irene"**

"So, what'll it be? Past? Future? Diamond planets or other otherworldly adventures?" the Doctor eyed Chris as his hands hovered over the controls.

"Future." Said Chris automatically, what other answer was there?

"Thought so. Nearly everybody says that." he began flipping switches and pressing buttons, running all around the circular console.

"So you've had other people travel with you, then?" asked Chris.

"Yes, yes of course! Lots." Said the Doctor, a flicker of sentimentality in his eyes.

"What happened to them?"

There was no answer other than a few less-than-pleasant sounding words in another language, caused by the Doctor tripping over a rock as he sped around and around the console.

Chris suddenly realized how incredibly fascinating the floor was.

_Whurrrrrrr. Whurrrrrrrrr. Whurrrrrrrrr._

"Well, here we are!" said the Doctor, having regained his cheerful mood. He kicked the rock out of the way and bounced towards the doors, throwing them open. "Welcome to New New York!"

"_New_ New York?" said Chris in disbelief, "seriously?"

"Yep. It's much shorter than the alternative."

"The alternative?"

"New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York. But that's such a mouthful that they shortened it to just two 'New's, plus you can't fit 'I heart NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY' on a hat. Unless you're a Siwually, they have very big heads…"

"So we're on Earth?"

"Yes, well, no, actually. This place is called New Earth, because it was so much like the old one before it became uninhabitable. It's the capitol of humanity's main empire."

"What happened the old one?"

"The old Earth? It got too hot for human habitation when the sun expanded. It's not there anymore, though. It got roasted when the preservation funding ran out in the year five billion.

Chris wasn't sure what to say to that.

The Doctor sighed and said, "You just found out one of the hard facts of time travel; the future isn't all fun and technology. People die. Planets die…" and while he didn't move, for a fraction of a second, he seemed to go somewhere very far away. He blinked and shook his head, "what am I doing? Depressing you on your first time trip! Come on, lets find the fun and technology!" he cried, perking up immediately and bouncing out the doors into the thick of the futuristic city.

Chris felt like he had just stepped into the middle of some sci-fi movie. Hover-cars, sleek designs, not to mention everything was absurdly shiny. Seriously, the place looked like it was designed by magpies.

He wasn't able to get much of a good look beyond that, as it was hard to admire the city AND keep up with the Doctor, and between the two, he would much rather not get lost. Though his attention was momentarily diverted as he bumped into someone he was pretty sure was not human.

"Doctor, was that a cat?" he asked.

"Wha-? Oh, yes, very probably."

"Why are there giant cats?"

"They live here, of course!"

"Why do they live here?"

"Why not?"

"It's just a little…weird?"

"Trust me, I've seen weirder. Much, much weirder."

They stopped by some sort of tourist shack, and the Doctor picked out a map. Which was strange, as the he seemed like the kind of person that didn't bother with maps and insist that they knew where they were going, Chris mentioned this to the Doctor, to which he answered that he was looking for something specific, and that he hadn't been here in a while.

While the Doctor fussed with the map, Chris took the opportunity to look around once more in more detail. Something caught the corner of his eye and he snickered. "Hey Doctor, year five-billion-something and they've STILL got random angel statues all over the place."

"Huh?" the Doctor looked up.

"I said, year five-billion-something and they've still got…" but when he looked over to point out the statue, it wasn't there.

"They've still got what?"

Was it just a trick of the light? "Never mind." Said Chris, though he was PRETTY sure he had seen the statue there. It was almost as unnerving as hearing about Earth being destroyed.

"Aha!" shouted the Doctor.

"What?"

"Found what I was looking for!"

"What?"

"A restaurant!"

"A restaurant?" asked Chris, his tone seemed to add _'seriously?'_ to the end of that sentence.

"Well, I don't know about YOU, but I'm hungry."

Chris shrugged. "Okay, restaurant it is. What kind?"

"Not a clue! It had a pretty interesting name, though."

"What would that be?"

"Here." The Doctor handed Chris the map and indicated the name. "I can't pronounce it."  
He stared at the name "Echt-… Froali-… Zyfap-… yeah. Neither can I…"

"Lets go then!"

[[POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX]]

The restaurant was less than glamorous.

Actually, it was a bit of a shabby wreck.

The Doctor had lead the way down a winding mess of roads, insisting that it was 'just around the corner', for at least fifteen corners. When they finally wound up in this rather sketchy, creepily unoccupied section of the city, Chris thought they had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Not really trusting any of the unpronounceable items on the menu, Chris opted for pizza. While the Doctor had gotten some strange concoction which might have involved noodles, and smelled strongly of celery.

Their waitress was one of those humanoid cats, and clearly wanted to be somewhere else. Though perhaps she might have felt bad for Chris, who was having a rather violent sneezing fit.

The Doctor wasn't bothered by any of this in the slightest, he was just that kind of person. He nibbled a noodle and promptly spat it back on his plate without any kind of subtlety. He looked up at Chris. "Goodness! Are you alright?"

"Id's –ACHOO!- fide. I'b allergic to ca-ha-ha-HACHOO!"

"I'm so sorry!" mewled their waitress.

"It's fine," said the Doctor, waving his hand dismissively, "I should have something in the TARDIS for it."

"Sooner than later please…" muttered Chris.

"Right…yes…allergy remedy in the TARDIS. Going now. Do you want to come along?" said the Doctor.

"What?" asked the cat.

"Back to the TARDIS, it's a space-time machine, it… you know what? I'm going to go get it. Don't follow me!" he checked his watch, then dashed out the door of the restaurant, and Chris and the cat sat and blinked at each other for a moment, before a familiar sound whooshed through the room.

_Whurrrrrrrrrr. Whurrrrrrrrrrr. Whurrrrrrrrrrrr._

"That was quick." Said Chris.

The Doctor hopped out of the TARDIS and tossed yet another piece of technology to Chris, "breathe into that for a while." He instructed. "And as for quick, as of this moment I am still on my way to the TARDIS. When I arrive there, I pilot it brilliantly back to three seconds after I ran out the door!" beaming with pride, he then turned to the cat. "Want to see inside?" he asked, holding the door open.

Cautiously, the cat stuck her head inside the TARDIS. The Doctor watched with amusement as her ears pricked up and her eyes grew wide. She looked at the outside again, and then back inside.

"I've only heard stories…" she whispered. "Old stories, myths."

The Doctor smiled warmly. "You wouldn't believe how many of those I've managed to influence. Or create."

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor."

"But that's just a story…"

"Aren't we all? What's your name, anyway?"

"Ariel."

"Excellent name. Why you know, I once met a-…"

"There's ANOTHER one! That's what I was trying to tell you about earlier." Interjected Chris, pointing to the corner of the room. "How many millions of years and there are STILL random angel statues everywhere."

"What statue?" asked Ariel.

"THAT one!" he pointed again.

Ariel seemed rather perplexed by it. "I've never seen the thing before."

The Doctor was suddenly very pale, he cautiously stuck his head around the edge of the TARDIS towards the statue. "Oh no. Oh no no no no no." and then, not taking his eyes off of it, he slowly asked, "are there any others?"

Chris swiveled around, and saw several more. How had he not noticed them earlier? "Yeah, a bunch, why?"

The Doctor kept his gaze on the first angel, and then held his hand out to his companions. "TARDIS. Now. And for God's sake don't any of you blink!"


	5. Explanations and ideas

**Hey! Sorry for no update in, like, forever. I had to deal with this Dalek, see, and he was screaming "PROCRASTINATE! EXTERMINATE! PROCRASTINATE!"**  
**so, here is the crap-ter that's been sitting in my computer for far too long. Yes, it's short, yes, it's nothing we Whovians don't already know, and yes, it's filler. But I had to get it out of the way.  
I promise, promise promise promise promise cross my hearts hope to die and never regenerate that I WILL put the next chapter up soon. I've been going to a writing camp to reboot my enthusiasm, and found a bunch of crazy Whovians there like myself (that would be you, Evelyne Raclane :) ) who've kicked my nerd-ness into high gear.  
one last apology for the chapter, since I also forgot to spell-check before I uploaded, and i'm too lazy to do it now. luckily my speling is beter then mosstt.  
you don't have to read it if you don't want to!  
Irene  
**

Chris stepped slowly towards the TARDIS, slightly confused. He stood next to the Doctor and asked "what? What is it?"

"IN!" the Doctor's outstretched hand shot towards the sound of the teen's voice, grabbing his arm and pushing the bewildered boy into the police box. "Ariel!"

the black cat skipped a little more quickly than Chris over to the time machine, and slipped inside between the doorframe and the Doctor.

Confirming his companions were now inside, the Doctor now backed into the TARDIS, swiftly closing the door behind him.

"what was that all about!" pressed Chris once more.

"no… they can't be here. How can they be here? In a city this size… this could be a catastrophe! No, WAS a catastrophe! One or two people in a small town is one thing, but if too many are sent back… oh no…"

"WHAT IS GOING ON!" Chris pleaded in an attempt to get his attention.

The Doctor spun around, surprised as if he had forgotten about him entirely. "those statues, they aren't statues. They're an alien race known as the Weeping Angels, or the Lonely Assassins, depending on when you live."

"yeah, so?"

"they live off potential energy. They send you back in time, far enough so that rarely do you ever live back to the moment you left. Effectively killing you, but not really killing you, otherwise it wouldn't work."

"what does that have to do with anything?"

"potential energy! All those days you never had the chance to live out!"

"okay. That doesn't sound too bad though, compared to, say, getting dissolved." Said Chris. He didn't really know why the Doctor was so freaked out about it, after all, those angels really didn't sound TOO bad.

The Doctor shook his head. "there are countless alien species out there, and a lot of them aren't that bad. But in a universe of this size, there are also a number of unbelievably dangerous races as well. And while what many of them do sound bad, extermination, assimilation, incarceration, there is nothing. NOTHING in this universe more dangerous than time and those who can manipulate it."

"but you travel through time, and seem fine with it."

"I'm cautious. No, really I am. I know what can and cannot be changed, what shouldn't and shouldn't be known, seen, or done. It's intuitive for me, that's why my race was known as the Time Lords. But the Angels neither know nor care about that, they strike at random. I've seen planets turn inside-out because the wrong person was sent back to the wrong place at the wrong time. their entire existence imploded."

"alright. That doesn't sound so great after all. But what are we going to do?"

the Doctor drummed his fingers on the console. "that's what I'm trying to decide. As catastrophic as it is, them being in a place with so many people, there is a greater likelihood of someone seeing them. And as long as someone can see them, we're safe. did I explain that bit yet?"

"what bit?"

"the bit about the angels becoming immobile whenever someone looks at them."

"you didn't explain that bit."

"right, the angels have a natural defense mechanism so that if anything living can see them, they turn to solid stone. You can't kill stone. So as long as someone is looking at them, they're completely frozen. They can't even look at each other without it happening."

"that's why you were staring." Realized Chris, "and why you told us not to blink."

"exactly." Said the Doctor. "so we need to get them off this planet before anyone gets hurt."

"Doctor." Ariel's ears pricked up.

"and judging by how many of them swarmed on us inside the resterant, we'll have to find a way to move a LOT of them."

"Doctor."

"I could use the TARDIS is bait. That much temporal energy would keep them from having to hunt for YEARS."

"Doctor."

"but how do you catch an angel? Stone is easy to get rid of but the moment you look away…"

"Doctor!"

"what is it?"

Ariel held up a small, rectangular object.

The Doctor looked at it blankly for a moment, and then grinned mischeiviously. "oh Ariel… you are BRILLIANT!"


	6. Guessing games

**HAHA! I told you I would update! and so I did. I know there was a lot of stuff I wanted to cram into this A/N, but I cant think of much. Other than if you want to know where I'm at, update wise, check my profile. I usually keep THAT up-to-date with where I'm at. No, this whole story will not be about the Weeping Angels. those will be sort of an "episode", there will be more "episodes" of varying lengths, plus the overall plot-arc. So sort of like a season of Doctor Who.  
Also, first one to guess my less-than-subtle reference to another British Sci-fi story, (hint, it's author wrote some original Doctor Who episodes) gets a free spoiler for where the characters are going next.  
Do leave a review, my soul lives off them.  
Enjoy :) (this chapter is better than the last one!)  
-"Irene"**

"A mirror?" Asked Chris, taking the object from Ariel. "This place has more mirror-like surfaces than a tin foil factory! If they could be sopped with reflections wouldn't they be stuck already?"

"Exactly." The Doctor paced in circles, "she brings up the point that these may not be your average Angels, first off, they're probably desperate, I mean, this would be the last place I would want to be if I were an Angel. They were probably driven here by the Daleks after the war."

"What war?" asked Chris.

"And they might be wearing some kind of Perception Filter to circumvent the quantum locking," continued the Doctor, ignoring the teen's question.

'_Smile and nod' _thought Chris, having given up on making sense of anything the alien said.

This time, the Doctor seemed to pick up on the question, even thought this time it was unasked. "A Perception Filter is a kind of cloaking technology. You know the object is there, but your eyes just sort of skip over it, it is so uninteresting that your mind just edits it out. Sometimes they call it a Somebody Else's Problem field, but Perception Filter sounds much more professional."

Chris smiled and nodded.

"But it can't be an ordinary Perception Filter, no, because the basic principle of the thing is that you can still see the object." No one was sure exactly who the Doctor was talking to now. He picked something up off the TARDIS console, fussed with it for a moment with the twitching fingers of a mad scientist, put it back down, walked away, came back and picked it up again. He repeated this procedure several times as he continued talking. "True invisibility is nearly impossible, even the Time Lords had a tough time with it. No, the Angels couldn't have gotten hold of a true cloaking device, which then leads back to them using a perception filter, but it doesn't mean people cant see them which is the whole point of trying to circumvent the quantum locking. No, they really are stuck here, but they're too smart to get stuck, no, they're waiting for something. But waiting for what? Pitch black, but this is New New York, city that never sleeps, even if it is nighttime there would still be enough light to be seen and get caught in reflections. They would have to…" his rambling stream of consciousness stopped abruptly, and stared through his companions to something that couldn't have been less than ten light-years away. His eyes focused again, now staring AT the companions in shock "…shut down all the power…"

"But how could they do that if they can't move?" asked Chris.

"Well, that's why they need to shut off the power."

"Which is why they need to be able to move!"

"Which is why they have to shut down the power!"

"Which is why…"

"Just shut up!" snapped Ariel. "Your logic is going in circles!"

"The cat has a point." Admitted the Doctor. He took a breath, and the others braced themselves for another barrage of words. "Angels have always been able to turn off lights, but they can't keep them off for very long. However, they are fast. Faster than you can believe" he stopped. "I think I may have said that before"

"Continue?" urged Chris.

"Ah, yes, well, it means that they can short out the lights long enough to shut down everything."

"Back to trapping and getting rid of?"

"I've got an idea…" and once again, the confident and mischievous tone of his voice reassured his companions less than it scared them.

[[POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX]]

Psychic papers can get you anywhere you want.

At first, Chris had had his doubts when he had flashed the blank piece of paper to the guy who would let them in, and even more worried about the panicked look on the man's face, but after making a few breathless calls, they were let inside, with wide and astonished eyes fixed on their backs.

"What did that thing say we were, anyway?" Ariel peered at the psychic paper.

Chris turned it over and looked at it. "Apparently we were sent directly by the President of the Galaxy." He said, eyebrows raising.

"Well, we're in. shouldn't you go ahead and tell your father?"

"What?" Chris said in surprise

"The Doctor." Said Ariel as though it were obvious.

"He's not my father."

"Uncle?"

"Why do you think we're related?"

"I don't know." Ariel's ears pinned back in embarrassment, "you just look a little young to be gallivanting around the universe with a stranger."

"Excuse me? I'm fourteen. And HE's a little young to be my father."

"How old would you say I am, then?" neither of the two had noticed the TARDIS materialize inside the power control room. The plan had been for Chris and Ariel to get inside, and then signal the Doctor who would bring the TARDIS. Apparently the Doctor wasn't going to wait for a signal. "No really," he leaned up against the doorframe of the police box, "guess."

"Twenty-six?" estimated Chris.

"Nope." The Doctor smiled and folded his arms.

"Thirty?"

"You're way off the mark."

"Twenty?"

"Still shooting on the low side."

"Ffffffffffffffffourty?" he ventured, growing more and more doubtful.

He laughed, "you're forgetting I'm not human."

Chris rolled his eyes, "hundred-fifty."

"Still nowhere near."

"Two hundred!"

"Try adding another digit."

He stared at him, "you mean to tell me you're two-thousand years old?"

The Doctor looked taken aback, "heavens no!" he self-consciously began fussing with his sleeves and bow tie. "I'm one-thousand-thirteen."

Chris's eyes were wide. "Still…" he remarked.

"Angels, trap, save planet?" reminded Ariel. "Unless you want to try to guess his weight next?"

"I weigh the same as a normal human with my type of build." Huffed the Doctor as he hopped inside the TARDIS to get ready.

"And what would that be, exactly?" Chris asked sweetly.

The Doctor either ignored him, or simply didn't hear him. Either way no response came from the inside of the TARDIS.

Just then, the lights in the room flickered out. Leaving only the soft glow from the inside of the police box and Ariel's bright eyes.

It was either hours, or heartbeats. Or both, considering how suddenly scared the three of them were. But after that oddly wibbly span on time, the lights flicked back on easily. Leaving them suddenly not alone in the room.

"Well, I guess that did attract them." Said the Doctor shakily. "How many are there?"

"Four or five." Ariel and Chris's eyes darted everywhere at once, trying to keep as many of the Angels as they could trapped in stone form.

The lights blinked off then on again. Leaving stone hands mere inches from their faces. "How much longer, Doc?" asked Chris, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

"Not long." Footsteps pounded around the control room. "And keep them out of the TARDIS!" he added.

_Click_

The lights were out again. And in those few, tense moments, three sounds broke the silence.

The clatter of a screwdriver on the floor.

A sudden _WHOOP_ made by the TARDIS.

And a sudden, strangled yelp made by neither Chris nor Ariel.

The lights clicked back on. And the Angels had vanished.

"Doctor! We did it!" Chris turned around in excitement. "We-!" his heart and stomach both decided to relocate themselves somewhere around his feet at what he saw.

Or the lack of.

There was no sign of the Doctor. Or the TARDIS for that matter. The only trace of the eccentric extra-terrestrial was the sonic screwdriver sitting in a lonely fashion on the floor.


	7. Not over yet

** Okay. THAT was probably my fastest update EVER. And even if I had updated this quickly before, it certainly wouldnt have been a 1,800+ word chapter! :D  
Since time between updates was such a short one, I'm giving you ONE MORE SHOT at the potential spoilers. It's a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference in the previous chapter. First one to spot it is the first to find out where everybody is going next.  
Realized that I need to give credit once again to Evelyne Raclane, with whom I have been texting quite a bit and who has accurately pointed out, "We talked about all this stuff! You've turned our mental conversations into chapter content!" so thank you again for all the chapter content :) and also for being the first and only person to reveiw my previous chapter.  
And now for the part of the note in which the author sticks in futile pleas for more reveiws! Seriously. You have no idea how much I love those things, and how few I ever actually get. Perhaps if I am witty enough I can catch your attention?**

The plan had been a pretty good one. The Doctor had called it, "practically foolproof. Not to mention humanproof and angelproof. Well, aside from the parts where things can go dreadfully and terribly wrong and kill everyone on this planet, since those are really easy to mess up. But I'll be doing that part, so no one has to worry."

Chris and Ariel were to sneak inside the main power room via the psychic paper, once inside, the Doctor would arrive in the TARDIS, since he was the only one who had any clue of how to fly it. They would create a small rift of temporal energy, that, combined with the presence of the Doctor and the TARDIS would be almost irresistible bait. They had chosen this room for the trap because, "the angels are coming here anyway, and I don't want to gamble on their priorities."

So, the Angels would come and approach the rift, TARDIS, or Doctor. At the last possible moment, they would destabilize the rift, which would flare up and whisk away the first thing it would come into contact with. In this case one of the Weeping Angels. Done right, the rift would pull on the unique quantum signature of the Angel as well, which could then suck in the rest of them. And then off everyone would bound to save the world someplace else.

It had been a pretty good plan, in theory, it would have worked perfectly.

Which was a sure sign it wouldn't work at all.

Chris twirled the sonic screwdriver in his fingers. Silently wondering why it was the only thing left, and what had gone wrong to make everything else vanish.

Slowly it began to dawn on him that he was stuck here. And even if he did manage to find some sort of spaceship back home, he didn't think anyone would let him go back in time as well. Everyone he knew would be dead.

He closed his eyes and leaned back up against a wall, feeling like he had swallowed his own throat. His fingers traced the tiniest of crevices in the steel wall, and then they came across something which didn't belong. He opened his eyes and looked down at it, a corner of white paper stuck out.

He gently pulled on it, careful not to tear it, until it had been freed. Unfolding it with what little curiosity he had left, he saw neat and curling handwriting. He looked blankly at it for a moment. What it said didn't seem to make much sense.

'_He needs you to use it.' _it read.

'_What, the Force?' _ His mind answered in sarcasm. He then looked over at Ariel, who didn't seem to know what to do with herself. "Come over here and look at this." He gave a small jerk of his head and held up the paper. "What do you think this is supposed to be?" he handed her the paper as she stepped quizzically next to him.

She read it over a couple of times. "Not a clue. But I don't think it has anything to do with us." She flipped it over, and her ears pinned back again. "That's scary." She commented, handing the paper back.

The other side read, _'of course this has to do with you! What did you expect!'_

"Just a little bit." Admitted Chris, "but that's not possible. I mean, it can't be US."

"Let's see if there's any more of these things around here." Ariel's eyes swept the wall.

They both scrambled around for a minute, trying to find more messages in the wall.

"Found one!" They both yelled at the same time. Pulling the messages out and running to meet each other at the center of the room.

"Yours first." Offered Chris.

"It's okay, you go ahead."

"No really,"

The politeness war went on for about a minute. When finally Ariel said, "you know what? I'm just going to read this…" she unfolded the paper, "did you think time travel was possible this morning?"

"Why?"

"No, that's what it read, look." She showed him the paper.

"This is just getting weirder and weirder…" Chris unfolded his paper and scowled.

"What?"

He showed her.

_'Deal with it. And even if you don't want to believe any of this is possible, use the sonic!'_

"Our message-leaver seems to have an attitude…" Ariel looked up at Chris. "So do you want to try?"

"Try what?"

"The sonic screwdriver."

He twirled the device again, "I don't know how it works or what it does. Other that it's somehow sonic and somehow a screwdriver. And it doesn't even look like a screwdriver."

"Just turn it on or something then."

He clicked the button on it, "all it does is light up and make whirring noises." He said, and then gasped.

A very faint blue outline appeared in the center of the room. It grew a little bit more solid looking after a moment or two, and became instantly recognizable.

It was the TARDIS.

**Sorry for this, I usually don't write A/Ns at the end of chapters, but I just wanted to point out how unbelievably EASY it is to leave reveiws these days. You dont have to click as much! all you do is put a few nice words in that little box down there, and click submit.  
OH THE HUMANITY THAT'S TOO HARD FOR ME! I CANT LEAVE A REVEIW! IT'S TOO COMPLICATED!  
Pretty please?  
Rant over.**


	8. Flux

**Hey guys! The final installment of the Weeping Angels/NNY part of the story! Tell me if there was any plot stuff I didn't explain or anything.  
The Hitchhiker's reference in chapter 6 was the Somebody Else's Problem Field**. **Correctly guessed by Quackaby, and Citizenofwhoville123 came close by guessing the bit about the President of the Galaxy.  
And Evelyne Raclane, you will get what I said about our mental interactions bleeding through again. But I just want to make sure to tell you, it is not a comment about how you text! It is perfectly intelligable, I just thought it would be funny if the Doctor...  
I'm not giving you guys any more spoilers! So read, to find out. (AFTER THE LINE BREAK!)**

Chris dropped the screwdriver in surprise. "Doctor! What the heck just happened?" he leaped over to the TARDIS door, and made to push it open.

His hand went right through it.

He jerked his hand back quickly. It was a strange feeling when it had gone through the TARDIS, like every atom in it was being tugged on just slightly.

Ariel approached the TARDIS, and made to put her arm through.  
"Careful," warned Chris, "you know what they say about your kind and curiosity."

Ariel's ears rotated forwards, "Actually, I don't." she slowly reached out towards the TARDIS, held her fingers a millimeter away for just a moment, then put her whole hand through. Followed by her arm, followed by her entire body until she had walked straight through the police box. She shivered, "that felt strange."

"Yeah, I know, ri- NYAGH!" Chris stiffened. The weird tingling sensation he had felt in his hand had shot through his whole body when the TARDIS doors had suddenly opened and a tweed-colored semi-transparent something had launched out of them, and then through him, at a high speed.

A surprised-looking Doctor spun around, opened his mouth as if he were saying something, but no sound came out.

"Doctor?" Chris stared.

The Doctor tipped his head and once again mouthed something, looking confused.

"I can't hear you."

The Doctor looked closely at Chris, and made a twirling motion with his fingers.

"I said I can't hear you."

The Doctor nodded, indicated himself, shrugged, then shook his head.

"And…you can't hear me?"

Nod.

"But what happened!"

The Doctor took a deep breath, and went off on a long stream of ranting, which would still not have made any sense even IF you could have heard what he was saying. He seemed to realize this, and then attempted to explain with hand gestures and other motions. Which left everyone even more clueless than with the talking.

Chris looked over at Ariel. "Can YOU hear any of what he's saying?"

"My hearing isn't THAT good." She replied. "I don't actually think he's making any sound at all."

The Doctor mouthed another something, which, coupled with his body language, clearly seemed to say, _'oy! I AM still here!'_

"Okay, sorry Doctor." Chris ruffed his hair, sticking tufts of brown up in every direction. "AGH! I just wish there was some way we could actually understand each other."

The Doctor tapped his fingers together for a moment, and then ran inside the TARDIS. If either had been audible, the companions assumed that loud crashes would have been coming from inside it. He ran back out with a flashlight, clicking it on and off in a predetermined pattern.

Chris shook his head, "I don't know Morse Code."

The Doctor tapped the flashlight against his palm for a moment, then an idea seemed to cross through his eyes, and he ran back inside the TARDIS.

Chris's pocket vibrated. He reached in and pulled out his computer, the screen was lit to indicate he had received a message.

'r u ther?' it read.

'Doctor?' he sent back.

'_ya gud 2 kno it worx' _the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS holding up an old-fashioned flip-phone.

'So what happened?'

'_ngels went fter TADIS nsted of rft. Im stuk in tmprl flx'_

'_Did it affect your spelling?'_

'_No. Y?'_

'_YOU TEXT LIKE A DRUNKEN PIRATE!'_

'_My apologies. Is my fashion of phrasing appropriate now?'_

'_Smart-alec' _after a short pause, Chris then sent, _'so what did happen? IN ENGLISH'_

'_The Angels must have realized what was going on. Instead of going for the rift, they went for me. It collapsed the whole thing and now we all got caught in a nasty temporal flux. Me and the TARIS were the only living things that could possibly have survived it.'_

'_Living thing-S?'_

'_The TARDIS is sentient. I'll explain later.' _The Doctor looked down at the sonic in the teen's hand._ 'You got it?'_

'_Yeah. How DID that get here, anyway?'_

'_I chucked it out the door when I realized what was going to happen.'_

'_Why?'_

He spread his hands out, indicating his current position. _'It wouldn't do anything here.'_ He sent.

'So you want US to use it?'

'_Well. Yes.'_

The Doctor took a long, deep breath. _'Here comes the great wall of text.' _he took almost two minutes to write his next message, explaining the procedure.

_Brrr. _Chris's computer vibrated, and when he looked down to see the message, he didn't need to type anything to get _'you weren't kidding' _across.

As he took his time scrolling through the message (and more often than not scrolling back up in order to reread something), Ariel's fur began to bristle, her ears swiveling around like satellite dishes.

The Doctor, too, seemed to start getting nervous. He tapped the watch on the underside of his wrist. He rolled up his other sleeve and checked the watch on that arm, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the fob watch, and then compared all three.

Chris, however, was oblivious to all this, as he was trying very hard to keep his mind from turning to mush as he read what to do. Who knew a simple screwdriver could be so complicated?

"They're back." Came a level but tense voice. Ariel.

"Hmmm?" he really wanted to focus on the message.

The Doctor shook his head wildly. Chris NEEDED to focus.

"Hmmmm?" came again.

Wide green eyes locked on a stone statue. "Never mind." She said, calmly as possible.

Chris put the computer away and began making the needed adjustments to the screwdriver. The Doctor started checking and comparing all his watches again.

Chris finished, closed his eyes and crossed his fingers, and turned the sonic on.

WHHHUUUUURRRRRRRP

He wasn't expecting THAT noise. He opened his eyes. The Doctor and the TARDIS were no longer transparent.

"Did it work?" he asked aloud.

The Doctor examined his hands. "I think so." He looked up, walked over to Chris and poked him in the chest. Hard.

"Oi!" Chris yelped.

"Seems I'm back in phase with the rest of you."

Chris gave the Doctor a small shove. "Seems you are." He hopped over to the TARDIS, and knocked on it. "So is this thing." He looked around, and saw something terrifying. "Gaahahahah, Doctor," he spun around, trying to keep his eyes on all of them at once. "Angels."

The Doctor prized his sonic out of the teen's hands, and gave a quick scan of one of the statues. "Nothing to worry about." He said.

"What do you mean nothing to worry about!" Chris tried to count all of them. But realized that something was different.

"Solid stone. Even if you look away." The Doctor tapped one of the statues.

"That's not how you said it works." Chris was still tense.

"Well, under normal circumstances, no, its not. But you bringing me and the TARDIS –especially the TARDIS- out of temporal flux has disrupted space-time enough to quantum lock the Angels without the stimuli of someone seeing them. Perhaps permanently."

"I lost you on the fluxy thing."

"My point is, the Angels are stuck in stone form. Most likely forever."

"All of them?"

"No, the disruption probably just affected the ones on this planet."

Chris looked around. "Where's Ariel?" he hadn't seen the cat for a while.

The Doctor looked solemn. "Can I see those notes you found?"

"Sure, why?" he handed him the scrap of paper.

The Doctor took it, looked at it for a moment, and then held it back out to Chris with his finger over something he hadn't noticed before at the bottom.

It was the letter 'A'.

He stared. "You don't mean they got her?"

"Afraid so."

"But she just got sent to the past, we could go pick her back up."

The Doctor shook his head. "That's not how it works. I hate how it does work sometimes, I really do. But if you hadn't gotten the notes, how long would it have taken you to figure out what to do?"

"A while, I suppose, but…"

"Then it would have been later when you had pulled me out of flux, therefore delaying the freezing of the Angels, therefore sealing your fate as well as the planet."

"But."

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

Chris sighed. "Okay then."

The Doctor drummed his fingers on the TARDIS door. "How about changing the scenery a bit. Another city, another planet, another time."

Chris nodded, "yeah. That sounds good."

The Doctor pushed open the TARDIS door, and Chris noticed as he stepped inside after him that the print reading PULL TO OPEN seemed to have gotten a little bigger.  
***swings the Doctor's fob watch in front of you* YOOOU ARRRRE GETTING SLEEEEEEEEEPY. YOOOOOU WIIIIIIL REEEEEVIEEEEEEEW THHHHHHE STOOOOORRRRRRRYYYYYYYY. (reveiw-ception!)  
**


	9. Endles on the Inside

**Hey! My word processor is a bit wibbly with the word-count, but I think we've reached 10K words! YAY! More A/N at bottom.**  
**Enjoy.**

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor pranced around the console, flipping this switch and that, pressing buttons and operating thingamajigs. Chris yawned as he wondered how much of it actually did anything, and how the man managed to remembered it all.

Fighting away another yawn, he asked, "what time is it?"

The Doctor looked up. "Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. I don't know, whatever time you want it to be."

He rethought the question. "What time is it, compared to when I was still on Earth?" The words, 'when I was still on Earth' somehow tasted very strange to say. It wasn't something you could say in many contexts.

The Doctor thought about it for a moment, "late, probably. Why do you ask?"

"Well, this sounds a bit anticlimactic but…" yawn.

The Doctor nodded, smiling. "That's fine. You're still human, after all. Hang on." he pulled one final lever. "There."

The TARDIS made its trademark whooshing noise, signaling they had left New Earth and were now somewhere else.

"So where are we know?" Chris reached out for the door.

"I wouldn't do that if I were…"

"WHOA!" Chris wobbled and lost his balance as he stared out into some depths of outer space, and fell out of the TARDIS. He tried frantically to twist around and fruitlessly pawed at the police box doors.

The Doctor messed with a few more controls, and Chris found he could breathe again. A weighted rope was tossed out to him.

Back inside the TARDIS, he gave the Doctor a funny look.

"Well, I couldn't keep her parked where she was, people would get suspicious." He explained. "Come on, let's find you a room before something else goes mad."

They exited the control room and went deeper into the TARDIS, down a corridor, took a left, walked about ten minutes and then took an innumerable amount of other turns.

"Here we go." The Doctor stopped in front of a door. "Something close."

The room was somewhat simple, and reasonably sized. There was a bed, nightstand, dresser, what was probably a closet door and some shelves.

"Do you think you will be able to find your way back?" asked the Doctor.

"Yeah." Said Chris. "Yeah I think so. Pretty sure. Well, I don't know. No. Not really."

The Doctor nodded. And handed him a scrap of paper. "Here's a map of everything in a half-mile radius of the control room." The way he said that seemed to indicate that there were things that perhaps went beyond even a mile radius.

Chris took the map. "Thanks."

"Anything you need?"

"Can't think of anything." He sat down on the bed. "What are you going to do?"

The Doctor stretched. "Same, probably. New companion almost always means new sleep schedule. Reset the old internal clock." He stood halfway out the door. "Are you sure you don't need anything?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

The Doctor left, and Chris began turning the nicely made bed into something of a nest.

[[POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX]]

Chris turned the map this way and that. Walking uncomfortably down the hallway, seriously doubting that he actually know where he was.

He had of course gone through that routine that's always in books and movies of having something fantastical happen to him, and then going to sleep, waking up, thinking it's a dream and then realizing it's not.

It was as disorienting as heck.

And he was more disoriented as ever now, he had followed the map, but it felt as if the rooms had rearranged themselves during the night.

He turned down another corridor, and caught a hopeful smell.

Tea.

Someone was making tea somewhere in the TARDIS, and sure as anything Chris was going to find it. He walked along at a much surer pace now, and stumbled upon something of a kitchen.

A pot of tea did indeed sit on the table, and its maker leaned against a wall holding a plate of Jammy Dodgers.

"Morning." Said the Doctor, spraying crumbs on Chris before swallowing the mouthful. "Or whatever you want to call it. Find you way here okay? The TARDIS decided to re-arrange herself again in the middle of the night."

"What's with that, anyway?" asked Chris.

"The TARDIS is a living thing. Has quite the mind of her own, too. She likes not taking me where I want to go. But I wouldn't have any other TARDIS." The Doctor stroked the wall.

Chris looked around. "How big is this thing anyway?"

The Doctor shrugged. "TARDISes aren't built, they're grown. And as far as I can tell, they never stop. Last I checked, if you turned her inside out she'd be the size of a planet."

"Ah." Chris looked at the Doctor, looked at the tea, and then looked at the Doctor again. "Do you mind?" he pointed to the tea.

"Go right ahead."

"Thanks."

"So." The Doctor set down the plate of Jammy Dodgers. "Where off to? Raxacoricofallapatorius? just because I LOVE saying that. Rax-a-cor-ico-fall-apa-tor-ius. Or it's twin planet, Clom. No, no, nobody ever wants to go to Clom. Bad idea. Sorry. There's the lost planet of Magrathea, and there's also Barcelona. The planet, not the city. The dogs there have no noses. It's a fantastic place. There's also all the stuff in your solar system, but who wants to go someplace so close to home? There's the diamond planet, Midnight. And there's the Ood-sphere, gotta love the Ood. And if we keep our distance, we could see the twin stars of Gallifrey. No, no never mind that, I'm being dull again. Where sounds good to you?"

Chris shrugged. "Actually, I know this sounds silly, but I was actually kind of thinking I kind of want to explore the TARDIS for a little while."

"Oh." The Doctor looked rather surprised. "Funny, it never crosses my mind. But yes, excellent idea. The TARDIS has been needing some love and attention, she gets jealous if you don't. Are you prepared for a lot of walking?"

Chris opened his mouth, but the Doctor interrupted him.

"Actually, wait a minute." He ran out of the kitchen. And it was, accurately, about a minute until he came back.

Chris stared at the thing he was riding. "What. In the name. Of sanity."

"It's a segway!" the Doctor replied in a childishly delighted voice.

"I know. But why?" he continued staring the ridiculous wheeled vehicle,

"The TARDIS is massive! We can see more of it this way."

"But why a SEGWAY."

The Doctor stared at him as though this were obvious. "Because segways are cool! Get on!"

"I am NOT riding that."

"Suit yourself." The Doctor leaned forwards and the segway zoomed out of the kitchen.

Chris jogged after him. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Not a clue!" said the Doctor happily. "Oh look! I think that's the closet! Lets start there."

"A closet? You're kidding, right?" Chris ran in short spurts to catch up with the segway, only to fall behind again after a few moments.

"No, THE closet. And you've never seen one like it." the Doctor wheeled inside and stepped off the vehicle. "Besides, you're going to need to get familiar with it."

Chris stopped and stared. "That's not a closet! That's a DEPARTMENT STORE!"

"Organized by size, planet, and time period." The Doctor crossed his arms proudly, and then pressed his finger to his chin as he remarked, "Or at least it was for a while, but that was about…oh…a couple centuries ago. Lots of regenerations, companions, oh, its all willy-nilly now. Not organized in the slightest. Feel free to poke- OH!" he lunged for one of the racks which held all sorts of odd things, and pulled out a rather horrible-looking multicolored coat. "I forgot this was in here! I used to wear this!" he put it on.

"What, the amazing Technicolor nightmare coat?" Chris gagged as he looked at the rainbow mess.

"I really had a horrible sense of style back then!" the Doctor said delightedly.

"Just take it off." Begged Chris.

A good twenty minutes later, they stumbled out the door laughing hysterically. Both wore outrageous hats, a scarf that managed to loop around both their necks and still trail on the ground, and other crazy doo-dads which both had deemed 'cool'.

"Speaking of 'cool', didn't you forget your segway?" Chris turned to look at the Doctor.

"Nah. Thought it would be best if we could keep up with each other." The Doctor leaned away a bit from the giant feather in Chris's hat that had stuck itself in his face.

"So, I've seen one room out of this supposedly GIANT ship. What's next?" Chris twirled the end of the scarf.

What was next was the largest library Chris had ever seen, a movie theater and stage theater, several rooms that simulated being outdoors, an arcade, a greenhouse, simple rooms with odd bits of furniture in them, and several rooms whose contents and purpose made no sense whatsoever.

"WHY," Chris scrambled to his feet after the latest one, "do you have an ENTIRE ROOM filled with bits of fluff?"

"Well, firstly I have no idea, and second, those are Tribbles. Best we put them back before we're overrun." The Doctor stuck his head out of a massive pile of the fluffy creatures.

"And why," asked Chris, pulling Tribbles out of his sleeves, "Do you have a swimming pool in there?"

"OH! So THAT'S where that went! It was in the library last time! The TARDIS likes putting it in the strangest of places. But whatever did she do with the waterslides?"

"Waterslides? Do you ever actually get to USE all this stuff?"

"Not enough. I think the TARDIS just gets bored while I run around saving the universe, and creates all kinds of things."

"Ever considered maybe picking up more people and…I don't know…make some kind of TARDIS city?"

"Nah, things wouldn't be as fun anymore. People create conflicts with each other, somebody has to sort it out. People always want to visit other places and there's only one door leaving the TARDIS, next thing you know I'm running a government slash taxi service then BOOM there goes the entire time-space continuum."

"Right." Chris squished one last Tribble into the room. "Is that all of them?"

"Should be." The Doctor grunted as he shoved his back against the door to close it.

"Are they going to be okay in there?"

"They'll be fine."

"Can… can I keep one?"

"Well, first let me tell you all about Tribbles, they're asexual self-reproducing creatures whose entire metabolism goes to entirely that. There is no such thing as just one Tribble. Now the curious thing about their physiology is…"

It was clear the Time Lord wouldn't have noticed if the universe suddenly ended around him, and continue on his lecture as he strolled down the hallway.

Chris didn't feel like learning everything you never wanted to know about Tribbles, and carefully he unwound the scarf and walked quietly down an interesting-looking corridor.

The corridor was slightly lower lit than the ones he had been in before, and gave him the odd prickling sensation that he wasn't supposed to be there. There was something else that was different that bothered him for a while, then he realized that he should have run into a door to some zany room by now. Especially since he had just reached a dead end, which was the first he had ever seen in the TARDIS.

He walked back up the corridor, and then down again. A lot of things in the TARDIS didn't have a point, but this felt a little TOO pointless.

He stood at the dead end and looked back to where he had came, his eyes scanning the walls for anything he might have missed.

Eventually, Chris noticed that his eyes seemed to gloss over a spot in the middle of the left wall. He tried looking at it, and instantly found himself looking at something else.

He walked right up to the spot, and put his hand out to it. Instantly, an old wooden door with bizarre clockwork designs –no, writing- came into focus. Again, the feeling that things here should be very well left along nearly drove him out of the corridor, but he fought it and pressed on the door, which swung open silently.

The room seemed part laboratory, part bedroom, and part museum. Odd gadgets and vials stood at their own end, a fairly large and extremely comfortable looking bed at the other. And then everywhere else, on shelves and tables or just standing upright, was an assortment of…stuff.

Some of the stuff was identifiable, such as an innumerable amount of books, a sapling with silver leaves in a large pot, a chess set, record player, a large poster for the final Harry Potter release. But as for everything else, he hadn't a clue. It looked like stuff from another planet, which, he reminded himself, it probably was.

He looked up, and at first thought the ceiling was painted, but realized it was some kind of projection. And it made the most untouched patch of night sky on Earth look tame.

He wandered around for a minute, looking in fascination. It was truly an incredible room.

"You're very intuitive." Chris whipped around, and saw the Doctor leaning against the doorframe.

"Doctor I-" he began, but couldn't come up with a very good explanation.

"That was a VERY powerful perception filter, the fact you even found that hallway was extraordinary." The Doctor stepped inside, and was about to walk over to where Chris stood when he looked off towards the lab. "Whoa! No no NO! DON'T. Do that!" he ran over to one of the vials, which had turned a hurtful color of pink, and smelled oddly like toast. He poured something else over it, and it calmed down to a mellow shade of blue. "There, that's taken care of. Sorry about that."

"What is this room?" asked Chris, reaching out to touch the silver-leafed plant.

"Mine. It's my room. Sorry about the mess, one thousand years and I still cant clean up any of my stuff." The Doctor began to haphazardly reorganize things.

Chris snickered. "Oh this is NOTHING. You should see my room back home." He let go of the plant and looked down at its pot. More clockwork writing. "What is this, anyway?"

"It's a tree."

"No, the weird writing on the pot."

"Gallifreyan. It's the only language the TARDIS doesn't automatically translate."

"Didn't you mention someplace called Gallifrey when you were talking about- wait. The TARDIS translates languages?"

"Oh, well, yes. She does it telepathically, any language you hear or read will look and sound like your native language, in your case English. And if you were on another planet, whatever you said would be translated into THEIR language. It's pretty nifty."

"I was wondering about the perfect English that seems to have survived until the year five-billion." He paused. "Are you speaking English?"

"I speak everything, so I occasionally might slip into something else if I'm not focused, but yes. I'm speaking English right now."

"So what I'm hearing you say is what you're actually saying without the translator?"

"Yep. Impressive, eh?" the Doctor drummed his fingers on the wall. "So, I think we've seen plenty of the TARDIS for today, any ideas of where to go?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." Said Chris, playfully holding back what his idea was.

"Oh?" the Doctor leaned in curiously.

Chris grinned, "ever hear of the Cybus Incident?"

**Alright then! It seems writing about exploring the TARDIS wasn't as easy as I had assumed, so we're moving right on to the next exciting chunk of plot! I may need to re-watch "Rise of the Cybermen" and "Age of Steel" (hmmm. What a shame…), since I AM going to be toying with the world of canon and continuity this time.**

**Also, I couldn't help but stick another HHGTTG and a Star Trek reference in this chapter, but I can't award any more spoilers since I'm still developing the next bit of plot.**

**Thank you to my lovely reviewers,  
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**Citizenofwhoville123  
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**Voldemort's Spawn  
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**WhoviansTARDIS  
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**Quackaby  
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**Evelyne Raclane (Whom I know in real life)  
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**The mysterious anon whose reveiw left me rather baffled  
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**darkin520  
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**The Bitter Kitten  
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**Eight people who have collectively left 23 reveiws! You could be added to this list, all you have to do is write in that little box down there and click Submit.  
**


	10. Interesting stuff

**Hey! Sorry for the terrible wait between updates. Procrastination Dalek strikes again!  
I know this isn't my best chapter, and is probably a little rushed, but I needed to get this out there so i can get back into the flow of updates and such.**

**On a more fun note, my real-life friend Evelyne Raclane and I were talking, and decided to each do a crossover with each other's fanfics! Lilya Ragjedy from Evelyne's fic will be making an appearance after we're done with this section of plot, and Chris and this version of the Eleventh Doctor will fall through universes and into her fic at some point!**

**Again, this probably isn't my best chapter, but is hopefully the first in a line of CONSISTANT UPDATES. Which I am obviously still trying to get the knack of.**

**Enjoy**

The Doctor cracked his fingers before leaning over the console. "Pop quiz." He said, turning to look at Chris for a moment. "What do you know about the Incident?"

The teen took a deep breath. "It started with John Lumic, owner of Cybus Industries –which had, at that point, pretty much monopolized the world-, Lumic was dying, and was obsessed with immortality. He thought that by taking out your brain and putting it in a robotic shell, you couldn't die. He ran illegal experiments, turning homeless people into cyborgs, even before he pitched the idea, which was shot down for obvious moral reasons. BUT, at that point, he had enough metal men at his command to do whatever he wanted anyway, and so thought he would go ahead and 'help' the human race without permission. Troops of them flood the streets, kill or capture everybody, and then everybody's ear-pods get hijacked and their minds controlled, and they all go to get 'upgraded' without any say in it whatsoever. Then all the Cybermen in England simultaneously explode for no apparent reason, and when the world finally gets over the shock they start debating moral issues, cyborg rights, they were human once too, la di da, then the ones that didn't blow up all vanish without a trace." Chris stopped. "I'm almost talking as much as you do." He remarked. "It's exhausting."

"That's why you leave it to the professionals." The Doctor smiled. "But you seem to know what you're getting into, not that I ever do. So GERONIMO!" he pounced on the controls, and the TARDIS went spinning into the vortex.

When they had landed, Chris climbed to his feet and asked, "Is there any way to make it less bumpy?"  
"What's wrong with bumpy? It makes you feel like you're actually going somewhere." Said the Doctor defensively.

"You mean there is and you don't bother with it?"

"Come on! Stampeding Cybermen wait for no man!"

"Do you even know how to fly this thing?"

"Of course I know how to fly her! In fact, I know so well that I threw the manual into a supernova because it was wrong!" the Doctor stepped out of the door.  
"You do realize that the door is supposed to open the other way, don't you?" Chris chased after him.  
"See? Wrong!"  
Chris stood outside the TARDIS and stared up. "Would you look at that? They've still got all those old zeppelins even all this time ago." He paused. "Wait…that's not right."  
"Don't worry about it. I'll give up keeping my tenses straight years ago." Said the Doctor. "It's all rather Wibbly anyway, you'll talk yourself into a paradox if you try to keep up with it."  
"Right." He looked around. "I don't see Cybermen."  
"That's because they aren't here yet. I brought us in a little early so we could get our bearings before the mayhem starts." Said the Doctor.  
"Oh come on! We have to wait for the interesting stuff?"  
"You would be surprised how much interesting stuff there is before the interesting stuff. Surprisingly important, life-saving stuff."  
"Such as?" Chris asked, and the Doctor took a deep breath. "You know what?" said the teen, "never mind."  
"Why?" the Doctor sounded a little disappointed.  
"Because I think I can feel the professional rambler warming up."  
"Its what I do!" the Doctor then clapped his hands together and folded them. "Interesting life-saving stuff doesn't happen standing still, lets go check out the local scenery, hm?" he set forth determinedly in the direction he was already facing.  
"Well, Allons-y then." Said Chris as he followed behind the Doctor.  
Chris nearly walked right into the Doctor, who had frozen in place. "What did you just say?" he asked, looking a little bit surprised.  
"Allons-y. It means 'lets go' or something in French."  
The Doctor stared unnervingly at him.  
"What?" asked Chris, feeling like he had done something wrong.  
"It's just… Nothing." He smiled brightly, "Allons-y indeed! And Geronimo and all the rest! Come along." They continued walking.  
"Where are we going?" Chris asked after a while.  
"Cybus Industries, of course. See if we learn anything important." The Doctor stopped in front of an imposing building. The company's headquarters.  
"That it?"  
"Yep."  
"We going in?"  
"Yep." The Doctor gave the main door a push. Nothing happened. "Must be locked." He said, pulling out his sonic and pointing it at the offending door.  
Chris rolled his eyes and tugged on the handle, opening it smoothly.  
"That's the ticket! Never leave home without the trusty sonic." He re-pocketed it, and strode through importantly and stealthily. A combination which was nearly impossible to pull off, but the Doctor managed quite well.  
The inside was shiny. Again. Chris wondered if Lumic had any kids, and if their descendants would eventually build New New York. And everything about the architecture and design seemed to scream of Cybus's importance and power.  
They strode up to a receptionist whose blank stare and ear-pods made her seem half-robot already. "How can I help you?" she asked in monotone.  
"We heard that there's been some kind of important project going on here recently." Said the Doctor.  
The woman's eyes were starting to get a bit creepy.  
The Doctor flashed the psychic paper. "I think you'll find everything in order."  
The woman nodded, and then pressed her finger to one of the ear-pods. "Yes…yes two people wanting to know about some project…no they didn't…yes. Yes they do…yes they are…of course." She handed the Doctor a key card, and looked rather suspiciously down at Chris. "The minor won't be able to go."  
"Oh he's older than he looks." Explained the Doctor. "I mean yeah he's a bit young, but he's very bright, already through collage! He's working with me."  
She continued looking at Chris. "Right." She slid another key card across the table.  
"Thank you." He said, in what he tried to make an intelligent and professional voice as he took the card.  
"Where would we go to…?" said the Doctor.  
The woman nodded towards an elevator.  
"Thank you." He replied in what actually was an intelligent and professional voice. And strode off towards the elevator. He pressed the button, but it didn't light. "Ah!" he chirped, seeing the small slot just below the button and fed his card in. the button lit, and the doors instantly glided soundlessly open. They stepped inside and waited. It didn't feel like they were moving at all, but when the doors re-opened, they were looking out at an entirely different floor.  
Giant screens with equations and blueprints surrounded a man in a wheelchair, who took no notice as they stepped into the room.  
The Doctor examined the screens and everything else in the room in a way that would impress Sherlock Holmes, while Chris tagged behind and played the part of Watson.  
John Lumic turned around, catching them a bit by surprise. "Ah." He said in a peculiar and distinctive tight voice. "I see you have arrived." He said.  
"Yes, we're here to…"  
"May I see your credentials?" he asked.  
"Yes of course." The Doctor once again pulled out the psychic paper and showed it to him.  
Lumic looked at it, then looked back up to the Doctor. "Do you take me for an idiot, Doctor Smith?" he asked.  
"No! Not at all!"  
"Then why did you think your psychic paper would work on me?" he wheeled a bit closer, looking surprisingly intimidating all things considered.  
"Psychic… Oh dear! How did that…?"  
Lumic pressed a button on his chair that seemed to be a comm. Line. "Security! We have an intruder alert! And make sure you catch them alive!"

**Fun Fact: Evelyne has started calling me "Little Miss Moffat". Can you guess why? :)**


	11. An odd situation

**So sorry I haven't updated in FOREVER! Daleks were everywhere and screaming "PROCRASTINATE!" **

**The combination of a good review, giving my friend an evil, Moffat-like hint about regeneration (Sorry Evelyne :P), and just thinking about all the exciting stuff I want to do in here kicked in at the right time and BOOM. New chapter. I will do my very best not to leave you waiting so long next time.  
So, why should I keep rambling on? Go on! Don't let me stop you from reading the story! ;)**

"So. Refresh me. What exactly was this supposed to accomplish?" Asked Chris, who strapped too tightly to a rather uncomfortable chair in a room filled with sharp, pointy objects.

"You know, information, plans, key codes, anything." Said the Doctor, also strapped to a chair nearby.

"Did we actually get any of that?" Chris fidgeted in an attempt to make himself more comfortable, and failed.

"Well. I dunno. You never know what's going to be useful, I mean, you just have to throw yourself in and see what you get. 'Geronimo'."

"We GET assimilated." Said Chris.

"Look, I know our escape ended somewhat badly-…"

"Badly? I'd say 'Fiasco'"

"Alright. Very badly."

"You walked straight into the security office."

"It looked like a back door!"

"It had the word 'SECURITY' printed on it in big, threatening letters."

"I was in a hurry!"

Chris twirled his feet around. "I think they've cut off the blood flow in my legs…"

"And I can't feel my fingertips." Remarked the Doctor calmly.

Chris gave him a funny look. "This sort of thing happens to you a lot, doesn't it?"

"It's not unheard of…"

"So how do you usually get out of messes like this?"

The Doctor thought a moment. "Each time is quite different, but I would say in general it's a mixture of luck, wits, agility, and my sonic screwdriver."

"Let's start with the screwdriver and try to get out of these things." Chris gave a tug on the restraints. "Before we get turned into experimental cyborgs."

The Doctor twisted in his seat, trying to bring his pocket nearer to his hand. Eventually the restraints stopped him from twisting any farther, leaving him in an awkward contortion as his fingers stretched towards his jacket, but only close enough to lightly brush the tweed. "Lets see what the other three can do for us, eh?" he panted.

Chris sighed, ruffed his hair, scratched the back of his neck and then froze when the Doctor gasped. "What is it?" Asked the teen.

"How did you…?" The Doctor made to tip his head in curiosity, but ended up thwacking it on the chair.

"How did I what?" asked Chris, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Ow. THAT." Said the Doctor.

"What that? That what?" Chris continued to gesture wildly.

"Your hands!"

"What's wrong with them?" Asked Chris, quickly bringing them forward to stare at them.

The Doctor gave a pointed look.

"Oh!" Said Chris, finally getting it. "Seems I have very thin wrists… Funny, I don't even remember doing that…"

"Back to plan A then?"

"Sure." He leaned over to the Doctor, scrabbling at the opening of his jacket pocket.

A few moments later, something began to hum. And an unnoticed machine high above both of their heads began to descend, Chris gave a quick look up and saw inside more wicked looking sharp things inside, along with parts for Cyberman outer armor. "What are you looking at?" asked the Doctor.

Chris swallowed. "You don't want to know." He frantically searched the pocket. "How much stuff do you HAVE in here?" he asked, pulling out some metal dog biscuits and a half-disassembled clock.

"You never know what's useful!"

"What, like 500 year old Jelly Babies?"

"How did THOSE get in there?" Asked the Doctor.

"How should I know? It's not my jacket. Here we go, screwdriver." He handed him the sonic.

"SONIC screwdriver." The Doctor looked up and sonic-ed the machine, causing it to stop with a few sparks.

"Nice timing." Commented Chris.

"Well, I am a Time LORD, after all." Said the Doctor smugly.

"Now to get out of these things." Chris used his free hands to pry at the rest of the restraints.

-DW-

"Well, second time's the charm!" the Doctor and Chris strolled down a street, far away from Cybus.

"Yeah, well, we were stealthy that time." Said Chris. He shivered. "It feels like we still haven't got out yet, like everyone is STARING at us, knowing we escaped."

"Its just in your head." Said the Doctor reassuringly.

"Thanks…"

"No problem!"

"So where are we off to now?"

"Well." Said the Doctor, turning something over in his hand, "When we were in Lumic's office I managed to get something interesting off his computer."

"Such as?" asked Chris.

"A time and a place. The time being very soon, and the place being not very far from here. It looks important."

"So what is it?"

"Jackie Tyler's 40th –cough- 39th birthday party. It looks like that's going to be his official unveiling. Good choice too, the President being there, and the Tylers being, well, the TYLERS. There'll be plenty of media hanging about for the hype."

"Jackie Tyler? As in Jackie and Pete Tyler?" Asked Chris.

"Yep. Odd family. There's something very odd about the daughter and her husband… Something that doesn't quite agree with the timeline… But I cant put my finger on it…"

"Doctor, those are my grandparents!" Interrupted Chris.

"What?" said the Doctor.

"I said that-…"

"I caught that, but how did I not pick up on it? I mean, Smith is a common name but I had no idea you were THAT one."

"Yes I'm THAT Smith. And are you sure it's okay to be going? Like you know those paradoxes in sci-fi movies about people messing with their ancestors and whatever and wipes the person out of existence?"

"Chris, it may be our timeline-messing that KEEPS you from getting wiped out of existence. Effect can happen before cause and we have to make sure this plays out correctly!" Said the Doctor in a serious tone.

"So what you're saying is, if we don't get involved, my family could die and me not exist?" Summed Chris.

"I'd have to check back and make some calculations in the TARDIS to be sure, but yes, I'm quite sure that that could happen."

"So what are we waiting for!? Geronimo or whatever you say!"

"Allons-y." Whispered the Doctor under his breath, secretly thinking of not only keeping Chris's timeline intact, but also doing some digging on a few of his own unanswered questions. The Tyler family was an odd one, after all…


End file.
